DUTCH DOUBLE STANDARDS: GOVERNMENT APOLOGIZES FOR OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT, BUT TO NON-JEWS ONLY…….

DUTCH EXTREME DOUBLE STANDARDS ON APOLOGIES EXPOSED INTERNATIONALLY

Manfred Gerstenfeld

Seventy years have passed, during which successive Dutch governments have avoided official mention of the grave misconduct of its Second World War predecessors in exile in London, with respect to the many murdered Dutch Jews. All governmental post-war statements on this issue taken together amount to less than one page of vague, irrelevant or glib rhetoric.

Every now and then, opportunities arise to draw attention again to the Dutch official omissions or falsifications of the truth. One such occasion occurred when the Dutch government recently apologized to the family of a murdered woman for its negligence in surveilling the murderer, her mentally disturbed brother. The government also rushed to apologize to the family of the former Dutch Prime Minister Els Borst who was murdered in February 2014, apparently by the same suspect. He has however neither confessed to this murder, nor been convicted in court.

The contrast of these rushed apologies for possible indirect government responsibility with the lengthy absence of such apologies to the Jewish community is self-evident, and highlights the extreme double standards involved. On the one hand – apologies concerning one person possibly killed due to government negligence. On the other hand – seventy years of waffling about over 100,000 Dutch Jews murdered by the German occupiers, while the Dutch government showed virtually no interest in these citizens and made no effort to save any of them.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center aroused the interest of the Wall Street Journal in this matter. The paper offered us (Rabbi Cooper and myself) the opportunity to publish a joint article on Dutch double standards concerning apologies.1

In our article, we pointed out that The Netherlands was the Western European country where by far the largest percentage of Jews was murdered during the war. Of the 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands at the outbreak of the Second World War, 107,000 were deported, mainly to German extermination camps in Poland. Of these, 102,000 were murdered. Following the recent apologies of Luxembourg2 and Monaco,3 now all other Western European countries have either apologized or admitted to their war-time predecessors’ responsibility and misdemeanors in great detail.

In our article, we focused solely on the main misdemeanors of the Dutch government-in-exile. This government only inquired about the fate of the deported Jews a year and a half after the deportations had begun, despite the fact that both the Dutch and Polish governments in exile were located in the same building in London.4 In the meantime, in the occupied Netherlands, the Jews to be deported to the death camps were arrested by Dutch policemen, transported by the Dutch railways, and guarded by the Dutch military police.

In 1943, Henri Dentz, a Dutch government-in-exile employee was tasked to write a report on the deportations. He estimated that 90% of those deported had been murdered. He declared before a post-war Dutch parliamentary commission, that no one in the government was willing to read his report.5

We then stressed the contrast of the recent Dutch government’s apologies to Ms Borst’s family with the lack of apologies forthcoming for the Jews. The day after the article was published, the national daily NRC Handelsblad contacted us as they wanted to publish the article.6 That Dutch translation led to a debate in the paper and in various other Dutch media.

A few days later, the only Chief Rabbi residing in the Netherlands, Binyomin Jacobs, called for an apology from the Dutch Prime Minister for the first time, during an interview with the Jewish Telegraph Agency.7 That article was republished by Jewish media in several languages.

The NRC Handelsblad also allowed me to reply to the letters to the editor it had published in reaction to our original article.8 Early this year, parliamentarians Joram van Klaveren and Louis Bontes, of the small Voor Nederland party, had asked Prime Minister Mark Rutte to apologize to the Jewish community for the wartime government’s failures.9 In his answer Rutte curtly referred to the glib statement of then Dutch Queen Beatrix in the Knesset in 1995. In my reaction in the NRC Handelsblad, I focused on what the Queen had actually said there, and suggested what she could have said.

In her speech in the Knesset Queen Beatrix summed up the persecution of the Jews in one paragraph saying: ‘We know that many of our fellow countrymen put up courageous and sometimes successful resistance and often, exposing themselves to mortal danger, stood by their threatened fellow man. During our visit to Yad Vashem yesterday we saw their names too among those remembered forever under the trees planted there. But we also know that they were the exceptional ones; that the people of the Netherlands could not prevent the destruction of their Jewish fellow citizens.’1011

This text was not only vague. It also put the emphasis in the wrong place. The text sounded even more insincere if one compared it with then French president Jacques Chirac’s detailed admission of French war time collaboration with the Germans several months later.12

After reporting the Queen’s actual words, I then wrote what I believe the Queen could have said far more truthfully: ‘The Dutch government-in-exile in London and the Dutch bureaucracy in the occupied Netherlands failed grievously with respect to their murderously persecuted Jewish fellow citizens. The government showed barely any interest in their fate. It didn’t even occur to the government to appeal to citizens in the occupied Netherlands to help Jews who wanted to go into hiding. Even if one of the 102,000 murdered Jews would have been saved by such a call, it would have been worthwhile. Thanks to the initiative of individual Dutch citizens, 24,000 Jews were able to go into hiding. This small minority of helpers cannot be praised enough. Unfortunately, 8,000 of those Jews in hiding were arrested, partly betrayed by other Dutch citizens.

‘There is continuity of government in the Netherlands. I therefore at the request of our current government offer apologies to the Dutch Jewish community for the far-reaching failure of its predecessor in London. This is a Dutch debt of honor and not something the surviving Jews should have to ask for.

‘It is not easy for me to speak about the attitude of my grandmother (Queen Wilhelmina) toward the Jewish community in the Second World War. Before the outbreak of the war, she had already protested against the housing of German Jewish refugees in army barracks in the town of Ermelo. She felt it was too close to her vacation palace Het Loo (which was at least 10 km away). Therefore a camp had to be built for them in Westerbork, in an isolated area of the Netherlands. Payment for this new camp was demanded from the Dutch Jewish community.

‘We know from my grandmother’s speech-writer, that in his drafts for her speeches on radio Oranje to Dutch citizens in the occupied Netherlands he regularly mentioned the fate of the Jews. He said that my grandmother nearly always deleted these texts.’13

All the above greatly contrasts with the benign international image of the Dutch war past. One can only hope that once again, Dutch parliamentarians will confront Prime Minister Rutte about his irrelevant answers and references to an insincere speech in the Knesset.

It shouldn’t be too difficult for Mr. Rutte to change his mind, tell the truth and apologize. He has been known to change his mind, as shown in his recent reversal of his major election assurance not to pay any more money to Greece, a promise which probably won him enough votes to become Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

A postscript, perhaps related to the media debate on apologies to the Jewish community which was going on: Gert Oostindie, director of the Royal Institute for the Knowledge of Language, Land, and People (KITLV) rather suddenly came out with the demand that the Netherlands should finally order a full, systematic investigation of the colonial war which led to Indonesian independence in 1948. This was the largest war the Netherlands ever carried out, with at least a hundred thousand Indonesian fatalities.

1 Abraham Cooper and Manfred Gerstenfeld, “It’s time for the Netherlands to Apologize,” the Wall Street Journal, 29 July 2015.

2 “Luxembourg apologizes for role in WWII persecution of Jews,” Haaretz, 12 June 2015.

3 Associated Press, “Prince Albert apologizes for Monaco’s role during the Holocaust,” The Guardian, 28 August 2015.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign me up for the newsletter!

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

Melting pot societies are the only way to secure the individual…

Multiculturalism is a gross failure. Assimilation, where celebrating one’s own heritage but as a full member of the dominant culture, wins.

There Is No Such Thing As White Cultural Heritage. The West’s Legacy Is Open To All…

There’s No Common Cultural Legacy For The Alt-Right

Still, is there something to it? Is there a common heritage that will cover El Greco and Hume and Dostoyevsky? Is there one that can include the Jacobites and the Jacobins? There is, but it is not racial, and white supremacists reject it because it rejects them. The unifying heritage of Europe is religious and philosophical. It is Jerusalem and Athens, in one famous formulation. Christian religion and Greek philosophy, filtered through Roman law and culture, are the foundation of European culture. The tensions, agreements, developments and settlements between these have shaped the Western world, and these roots of Western civilization are not congenial to white supremacy.

Christianity is universal in its message and Jewish in its origins. For centuries after its founding, Christianity’s center was the Mediterranean world, including Asia Minor and North Africa. Christianity has never been defined by race, and locally-grown racist heresies are only sustainable among those ignorant of Christianity’s teachings, origins and history.

Greek philosophy is likewise ill-suited to serve as a basis for white identity. It is either too universal (addressing the human condition in general) or too local—none of us live as citizens of an ancient Greek polis. Later philosophical developments in Europe, such as the philosophies of the Enlightenment, likewise tend to be too universal for white supremacists seeking a tribal identity. As for the scientific revolution that developed within Western culture (albeit with much borrowed from outside Europe), math doesn’t care what color someone is.

Trending Israeli News…

IDF prepares to demolish Jerusalem terrorist's house
Army units make initial preparations for demolition of terrorist's house, following murder of Adiel Coleman in the Old City of Jerusalem.Man murdered in Jerusalem attack: Adiel Kolman
Jewish man who was murdered in attack in the Old City of Jerusalem identified as Adiel Kolman, a resident of Kochav Hashahar.Murderer of Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal caught
Israeli forces arrest Israeli Arab responsible for the murder of Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal near Ariel last month.ISRAELI AIR FORCE STRIKES HAMAS TERROR TARGET IN GAZA STRIP
"The attack was carried out in response to the placement of explosive devices on the border fence."

SECULARISM AND RELIGION: THE ONSLAUGHT AGAINST THE WEST’S MORAL CODES

War is being waged against Western culture from within which is in essence a war against Christianity and its moral origins in the Hebrew Bible. By attacking these Biblical foundations in the name of reason and human rights, the culture warriors of secularism are sawing off the branch on which they sit. The only way to defend Western civilisation is to reaffirm and restore its Biblical foundations. My argument is a development of ideas I first explored in my 2012 book The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power.

We are living in an era which extols reason, science and human rights. These are said to be essential for progress, a civilised society and the betterment of humanity. Religion is said to be their antithesis, the source instead of superstitious mumbo-jumbo, oppression and backward-thinking.

Some of this hostility is being driven by the perceived threat from Islamic terrorism and the Islamisation of Western culture. However, this animus against religion has far deeper roots and can be traced back to what is considered the birthplace of Western reason, the 18th-century Enlightenment.

Actually, it goes back specifically to the French Enlightenment. In England and Scotland, the Enlightenment developed reason and political liberty within the framework of Biblical belief. In France, by contrast, anti-clericalism morphed into fundamental hostility to Christianity and to religion itself.

“Ecrasez l’infame,” said Voltaire (crush infamy) — the infamy to which he referred being not just the Church but Christianity, which he wanted to replace with the religion of reason, virtue and liberty, “drawn from the bosom of nature”.

Perfecting society

But this Enlightenment did not remove religion so much as pervert it. It took millenarian fantasies, the idea that the perfection of the world was at hand, and it secularised them. Instead of God producing heaven on earth, it would be mankind which would bring that about. Reason would create the perfect society and “progress” was the process by which utopia would be attained.

Middle East expert Mordechai Kedar: To talk of peace in the Middle East is akin to begging to keep your head connected to your shoulders…

What mainstream Islam really teaches, what they believe…

Trending European News..

SAS sniper kills senior ISIS fighter with 'one in a million' night-time headshot from a mile away close to the Syrian border
SAS sniper kills senior ISIS fighter with 'one in a million' shot
The marksman is said to have killed the terrorist with a 'head shot' close to the Syrian border having been given a window of just 15 seconds. He is understood to be a sergeant with the SAS G-Sqaudron and a veteran of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he is understood to have recorded as many as 100 kills.Rees-Mogg’s Ultimatum to May: If Britain Bends to EU on Trade Policy It Will Become ‘Joke Nation’Report: Czechs Mulling Moving Embassy to Jerusalem
TEL AVIV – The Czech Republic has begun investigating the possibility of following the U.S.’s lead and moving its embassy to Jerusalem as a result of a diplomatic campaign waged by Israel, Channel 10 reported on Saturday.Danish Social Democrat leader faces criticism after 'using ethnicity' in Facebook debate
Mette Frederiksen has been criticised after she appeared to suggest a commenter was less entitled to take part in debate because of her immigrant background.

Daniel Greenfield explains Islam 101:

"Every devout Muslim is an "Islamist". Islam is not a personal religion. It is a religion of the public space. A "moderate" Muslim would have to reject Islam as a religion of the public space, as theocracy, and that secularism would be a rejection of Islam.

Nothing in Islam exists apart from anything else. While liberals view culture and religion as a buffet that they can pick and choose from, it is a single integrated system. If you accept one part, you must accept the whole. Once you accept any aspect of Islam, you must accept its legal system and once you accept that, you must accept its governance and once you accept that, you lose your rights.''

Trending Middle East News…

Republican Senator expects Trump to pull out of Iran deal
Senator Bob Corker says he expects Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement in May.Greenblatt: Hamas is burying Gaza's future
Trump’s envoy condemns Samaria terrorist attack, blasts Hamas for welcoming it.Analysis: Here's how to deal with the barbaric Syrian regime
Electrocuting children, turning hospitals into slaughterhouses, using chemical weaponry - how long can this be allowed to continue?(Thanks to Obama for giving a time date for US departure)
Analysts: Iraq War Legacy Marked by Failure, Some Success

Jenin: Massacring Truth (This documentary was made long before the term #FakeNews got started…